Fresenius Medical Care Secures Dialysis Services for Thousands of Patients Following Recent Storm Outages
July 26 2012 - 9:28AM
Business Wire
When severe thunderstorms left a trail of property destruction
and power outages stretching from Illinois to New Jersey on June
29, Fresenius Medical Care North America (FMCNA) immediately
activated its Emergency Task Force, which initiated disaster
response plans to assure uninterrupted service for patients at 45
affected clinics across the region. FMCNA, which operates the
nation’s leading network of dialysis facilities, takes special
precautions to prepare for hurricanes, tornados and other natural
disasters, to help meet the healthcare needs of kidney dialysis
patients, who require treatment every two to three days to stay
alive and healthy.
The recent storms left more than 4 million people without
electrical service and interrupted many communities’ access to
water, gasoline and other crucial supplies, posing a serious health
hazard to more than 71,000 dialysis patients in the 10 states.
FMCNA’s emergency generators kicked in and supplied power to dozens
of its clinics across the region. Meanwhile, the company’s
operations staff rolled out pre-positioned emergency supplies –
including water, ice, fuel, generators, food, medical supplies and
more – to the affected areas.
For example, FMCNA’s Emergency Task Force worked with local
teams in West Virginia in the hours and days after the storm to
coordinate the delivery of thousands of cases of bottled water to
clinics and home dialysis patients who lost municipal water
service. The Emergency Task Force also delivered water, portable
power generators and gasoline to storm-affected employees, helping
them to resolve their personal difficulties so they could focus on
serving patients.
In West Virginia’s hard-hit Greenbrier County, FMCNA provided
in-center dialysis for nearly 30 patients from another local
dialysis provider, whose clinic initially lacked sufficient water
supplies.
“Our advance preparations allowed us to continue our own
patients’ dialysis treatments in the aftermath of the storms and to
provide support to the entire Greenbrier renal community” said
Sharon Deluca, FMCNA’s director of operations for 10 affected West
Virginia clinics.
Natural disasters strike throughout the year, and when such
events occur, FMCNA coordinates efforts across all levels of the
company, ensuring the ability of staff to provide patients with
dialysis treatments, equipment and supplies, medicines and lab
services. The company also works in tandem with local governments
and community organizations such as the Kidney Community Emergency
Response (KCER) Coalition, hazmat teams and others. It also
activates an emergency hotline so that any dialysis patient –
whether they are a regular FMCNA patient or not – can arrange to
receive treatments.
“In recent years we have seen natural disasters occurring in
more populated areas, which have greatly impacted our patients and
clinics. Our job is to prepare for these types of disasters to
ensure our patients’ safety,” said Dr. Babajide Salako, director of
Global Pandemic Response Operations, FMCNA. “FMCNA’s resources and
national partnerships give us the ability to coordinate the
delivery of resources from across the country to any locale within
hours of a disaster.”
FMCNA’s natural disaster response plan has been tested and
validated many times in recent years, from Hurricanes Ike and
Katrina, to last year’s tornadoes and floods in Alabama and
Missouri.
For more information on FMCNA’s natural disaster response
efforts and important tips to help patients prepare for any
emergency, visit FMCNA’s Emergency Preparedness website.
About Fresenius Medical Care
Fresenius Medical Care (NYSE: FMS) is the world’s leading
company devoted to patient-centered renal therapy. Through more
than 3,119 clinics in North America, Europe, Latin America,
Asia-Pacific and Africa, we provide kidney dialysis treatments to
approximately 253,000 patients worldwide. We are also the world’s
leading maker of dialysis products, such as dialysis machines,
dialyzers and related disposable products. Chronic kidney failure
is a condition that affects more than 2.1 million individuals
worldwide. For more information about the company’s more than 2,100
U.S. dialysis facilities, visit www.ultracare-dialysis.com (in
English and Spanish). For more information about Fresenius Medical
Care, visit www.fmc-ag.com or www.fmcna.com.
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